1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an ink substrate, an electrophoretic display device having the same, and a method of fabricating the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Data of newspapers or magazines can be provided through a display device for a personal computer (PC) connected to the Internet.
Recently, a display device such as an electronic paper (E-Paper) has been actively developed, which is adapted to display only data of books, newspapers, magazines, or the like.
Generally, an E-paper is realized in an electrophoretic display device that drives charged particles by electrophoresis to display data.
The electrophoretic display device continues to display data without consuming additional power unless it receives an electrical signal for a rewriting operation. Therefore, the electrophoretic display device has an advantage of low power consumption. The electrophoretic display device includes an ink substrate including the charged particles.
FIG. 1A is a sectional view of an ink substrate included in an electrophoretic display device according to a related art. FIG. 1B is an enlarged view of microcapsules of the ink substrate illustrated in FIG. 1A.
Referring to FIGS. 1A and 1B, an ink substrate 510 includes a first electrode 530 disposed on a substrate 520, an ink layer 550 disposed on the first electrode 530 and including a plurality of microcapsules 560, and a release paper 540 covering the ink layer 550.
Each of the microcapsules 560 includes a capsule wall 565, a transparent liquid 563 and charged particles 570 that are filled within the capsule wall 565.
The charged particles 570 include first particles 570a for displaying a white image and second particles 570b for displaying a black image. The first particles 570a and the second particles 570b of each microcapsule 560 can move in a direction opposite to each other, thereby displaying white and black images.
The release paper 540 is disposed on the ink layer 550 in order to protect the microcapsules 560.
The side surface of the ink layer 550 may be exposed to the outside. For example, the ink layer 550 may be cut into a predetermined size for a particular type of a display device. Such ink layer 550 may be delivered and/or stored before it is used for the display device. The ink layer 550 is affected by external factors such as impact, heat, moisture, or the like. Therefore, the exposed microcapsules 560 of the ink layer 550 may be easily damaged due to impact, heat, moisture, or the like, so that malfunction can occur in driving the charged particles.
The release paper 540 may be removed from the ink substrate 510, and then the ink substrate 510 may be attached to a driving substrate (not shown) including a second electrode, whereby fabricating an electrophoretic display device.
In this case, since the microcapsules 560 disposed in a side surface of the ink layer 550 is exposed to the outside, it may be easily damaged due to impact, heat, moisture, or the like, which leads to malfunction in driving the electrophoretic display device.